The Function of Theory in Composition Studies

By Raul Sanchez

Subjects: Composition And Rhetoric Studies, Communication, Writing
Paperback : 9780791464786, 133 pages, June 2006
Hardcover : 9780791464779, 133 pages, July 2005

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Table of contents

1. The Current State of Composition Theory

2. The Discourse of Knowledge in Composition Theory

3. Composition's Ideology Apparatus

4 Theories of Culture in Composition Theory

5. Writing Without Subjects

Notes
Works Cited
Index

Offers an extended critique of key assumptions in composition theory and a new paradigm for thinking about writing in an increasingly globalized and textualized world.

Description

How can theory improve our knowledge of writing? Raúl Sánchez answers this question by examining dominant theoretical trends in composition studies over the last fifteen years, citing their common origins in a narrow, representational metatheory of writing. He argues that this adherence actually leads the field away from its objects of study: writing and the writing subject. Through this extended critique, he elaborates an alternative metatheory, one that restores writing to the conceptual center of composition studies by emphasizing its generative—rather than its representational—characteristics, particularly in increasingly networked and textualized cultures.

Raúl Sánchez is Associate Professor of English at the University of Florida.